


red on the horizon

by Local_ACOG_Dealer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, One-Shot, Short, The Earth Kingdom, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 08:31:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Local_ACOG_Dealer/pseuds/Local_ACOG_Dealer
Summary: It’s easy to forget about the men that lived before the avatar came back—before the hundred year war ended.





	red on the horizon

It was a lazy morning. The leaves had begun to truly turn that classic green of spring and the grass was still bathed in an early dawn’s dew, and there was still a chill left in the air from the night. The herd had begun grazing already, and the farmhandswere just getting up in preparation for the first planting of rice.

These mornings were what made Nagu at peace with being just a farmer. He hadn’t thought it his path at first, but... he began to see the ups as the years and years had gone on. Nothing but yourself, the rising sun, and the crops. Lazy nights and good friends. No nonsense, no drama—the farm was far even from the closest village, not to mention farther from the big cities of Ba Sing Se or Omashu. No, the farm wasn’t near any towns for quite a few miles; the only traffic they got down the wagon-worn dirt road in the valley was their own, and that was only for selling produce and buying the occasional good. It was solitude. The good kind.

It’s reasons like those: that’s why Nagu doesn’t have to worry about the Earth Kingdom marching in for new blood soldiers—they were too off the beaten path, just to recruit one or two men. They were, after all, just one farm. Best to hit a town where they could pick up children and teens and men and women like cherries off a tree in July to pull into their army.

He didn’t have to worry about them running in to quarter their troops in his barn because this place wasn’t significant. No reason to defend what isn’t useful; they are nothing but a single particle of dust to the great walls of Ba Sing Se. It’s by the same rationale that he can declare the Fire Nation wouldn’t bother them. No point in burning up what wouldn’t even be on the Earth Kingdom’s map; they wouldn’t even notice they were gone. It wouldn’t exactly hurt morale. It would be unnecessary and expensive to do it, and wars can’t spare any money. The valley was hard to traverse even for the few locals, anyhow. Those fire pigs probably wouldn’t even make it to them in three days—and that was mighty generous.

He did admit to having a little annoyance built up with the way the his country liked playing fast and loose with their honor on protecting their citizens—some mattered, some didn’t, some were conveniently forgotten... everything paled in comparison to Ba Sing Se. Because if it fell, everything else fell too. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

It’s with a bittersweet smile he can say the farm shouldn’t be bothered.

Except—well. He’s sitting on the fence of the turkeyducks, watching the greenhorn planters trip like newborns in the paddy, when he spots it in the corner of his eyes.

A speck. A moving speck. On the road.

Specks do not belong on the road. Nothing does.

His first thought was a curse. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said that no one came here. He can count on one hand the amount of visitors they’ve gotten in all the years. They have never had a local. If someone was on that road, it meant bad news. _Ironic_ , he wants to laugh, if he could. Figures that it’s the day he reminisces when it all ends. The trepidation rises in his throat, tying up his tongue in thick knots, becoming heavy in his mouth, as that little spot of color on the horizon gets bigger. The dread in his stomach was falling, falling, falling.

The Earth Army is always recruiting back up north in spring. He lives in the south.

He feels like stone, he distantly thinks.Cold, weighed down, grey—he feels like stone. His fingers are white on the fence. The workers haven’t noticed yet. The old ones laugh at the new, when they trip in the water just like they themselves used to. They’re telling jokes, he can tell, by the way they laugh and grin. He looked at them and he looked at the road, and back again, eyes heavy and lids low. He never noticed how some of them smile real toothily, dimples on their cheeks, and others just had their lips twitching, but their eyes were smiling all the same. Some had freckles. Some had acne. Some had wrinkles. Some had none.

The road has less brown than it did beforehand. It shared its space with reds and golds and blacks, and the colors marched down the road like that one figure had before them. He can’t see that figure anymore, not with the rest of the colors behind it.

His eyes were wet, he knew, blurringwith acknowledgement of the implication on the road. But he was stone and rock and earth and he would be standing tall. So he stood and faced the men in red armor marching down the valley.

He stole one last glance at the—unfinished, they will never get to be finished—rice paddies before he stepped forward to meet the soldiers with a kick, and the ground moved with him. 


End file.
